I just beat Shenmue II after beating the first Shenmue a few days before, and while I got to fall in love with both games all over again, the day after I'm filled with a deep sadness that I'm once again right back where I was in back when I first beat these games in the early 2000s. Even with Shenmue III being a reality now, the saga is still unfinished and while there were some pretty hopeless times before that game was finally announced and successfully funded, I don't think things were ever as bad as they are now when it comes to the Shenmue series.
Unfortunately due to poor sales, mediocre reception, and a period of online backlash (some of it justified, some of it not), this series is in a way more precarious situation than it ever was pre-Shenmue III. There was no ill-will towards the series, and if anything there was massive amounts of hype and anticipation for the future of the franchise. While Shenmue and Shenmue II were not financially successful games for Sega, enough time had gone by combined with a noticeable amount of internet hype that there was the question of whether it could work years after Shenmue II's release. With Shenmue III out and having been out for over 5-years, none of these factors prior to its release are in play anymore, and if anything the lack of mass market viability was proven by that game's release.
Even replaying Shenmue 1 and 2, it's easy to see why these games will never have a mass market appeal. It has nothing to do with the quality of the games, especially for the time they were released, but rather their relative slow pace and focus on story over action all but confirms their lack of appeal with modern gamers. Combine this with a fairly niche plot about martial arts training and its no wonder the Shenmue fanbase is smaller than ever. If Shenmue could be fully realized for a couple million dollars, I could see Shenmue IV or even a Shenmue V happening, but as is there is no way this game is ever getting funded by anyone expecting any sort of return on their investment. 5 to 10 million a game just isn't going to ever happen with a game like Shenmue again unless some very wealthy person decides to fund future games as a passion product, which we all know is never going to happen.
With Yu Suzuki reaching his mid 60s and by his own admission, two more games, at least, being required to complete the story, I have all but given hope we will ever see the conclusion of the franchise, at least in video game form. Suzuki has stubbornly rejected pleas to finish the story in a much more budget friendly medium such as a manga or visual novel. The anime method was tried, but due to a series of unfortunate events, that method of finishing the story is just as dead in the water as the idea of any future games. My hope is with old age, Yu Suzuki will finally realize the futility of ever seeing his story finished in the ideal format he's so desperately wanted to use for over two decades now, and that the rest of us have desperately wanted as well. It pains me to never see another new Shenmue game released again, but it would pain me even more to never know how the saga ends.
I would be absolutely overjoyed if Sega or Suzuki announced a Shenmue manga or even a novel that would conclude the story. I so desperately want to know how the rest of the story plays out and it deeply saddens me that I possibly never will. Of course, in an ideal world, Shenmue IV, V, and VI (maybe even VII) would all have been released all throughout the 2000s and 2010s and Ryo's story would have been concluded in video game form years ago. Unfortunately, this could not be further from reality. We'll see what the future holds, but of course my favorite game series of all time had to be one that has been incomplete for a quarter century and likely will stay that way given its woefully unfortunate situation.
